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One small step for man

This weekend will be an interesting one for many reasons. Foremost of these is that I will be out of town from 8 AM on Saturday until 10:30 PM (or later) on Sunday. Rather than sending Kirstin for a whole weekend with a grandparent, I'm leaving Forest in charge. It's going to be his first time putting Kirstin to bed by himself, and getting her around in the morning. It's even a rather exposed one for him, too, because on Sunday morning he will need to get her to church on time for her choir rehearsal and performance, and none less than my mother will be there to meet them. Getting Kirstin to do anything on a schedule can be pretty challenging.

No pressure, though. Heh heh.

I think they will be fine. He and Kirstin have a pretty good arrangement between them, and there's a thorough plan for covering babysitting while Forest is at work. Saturday his mom will be taking Kirstin to the March of Dimes walk-a-thon, then on Sunday my mom will watch her after church.

Forest even has a neat activity planned for late Saturday night. A bunch of friends will be having a bonfire/drumming circle in the middle of nowhere, and there will be some other kids there. It sounds like a pretty fun thing, matter of fact, I'm sorry I'm missing it!

On the contrary, I'll be busy not having much fun at all this weekend. Bell choir tours are hard work. The people are always nice enough, true, however it's difficult work, and relatively thankless. People come to see our shows, but they don't realize the amount of sheer ickiness that goes into them.

We have 48 feet in 6-foot tables which we must cart around. They are heavy and awkward to deal with. On top of those goes another 48 feet of thich foam padding, and a tablecloth and skirt for each. We travel with dozens of heavy cases of bells, and dozens of lighter but bulkier cases of handchimes. There are also large boxes of music, lighting equipment, sound equipment, percussion instruments, a flute, a clarinet, an LCD projector and laptop, 10 collapsing music stands, mallets, uniforms for everyone and even more. It's insane. Each place we travel we have to deal with the logistics of tearing down all that junk and setting it up again. It takes us several trucks and vans just to move it all. All things told, it's a royal pain in the butt. We easily spend an hour just unloading our cars and setting up for a concert, and another hour packing back up again. So basically, we spend as much time packing and unpacking as we do playing at a given event.

Tour is also a bit of an adventure because people volunteer their homes and host-a-ringer rather than paying for us to stay in a hotel. Sometimes this is fun, like the time I stayed with these people way up north who had a beautiful ranch on a lake, and many rooms to spare. Sometimes it's not so fun, like the time I stayed with this little old lady in the middle of winter, and she didn't have central heat. I could see my breath at night. Of course I was polite and said I slept wonderfully... but it all comes down to the luck of the draw whether you will have a nice breakfast and central heating, or be fed squirrel meat in a cabin in the woods. Sometimes we have to double and triple up in beds, too. You haven't lived until you've shared a twin size bed with another adult with whom you are not intimate. Yeeech.

Tonight Forest, Kirstin and I are going out to Bath to see all our friends in Dr. Faustus. I'm really looking forward to it, however I feel a bit on the guilty side, because I've been hearing through some theatre folks that my usual level of work on a JeffCroff show has been a real dent in things. I don't know that it's been affecting actors, but I guess particularly the production end of things has been irritated by it. At the time I was doing these things I didn't realize I was putting so much time and energy into the productions, and trying to keep them organized. I just thought of it as 'helping Jeff out'. As I look back on it, though, I realize that I spent hundreds of hours on this stuff. I drove all over town running errands, bought and gathered things, transported things, designed and printed things. I made the necessary phone calls, typed up cast lists, arranged payment and reimbursements, and a ton of other silly little things that a director would just as soon not have to bother with doing.

At the very last minute (last week), I volunteered my energies to Jeff, but for whatever reason, he didn't take me up on it. It really isn't his style, though, and that's part of the problem. He would rather try to do everything on his own than as for help from anyone, because he doesn't trust them to do it right anyway. The only way I did stuff for him before was by basically usurping his authority because I knew I could get away with it. I didn't ask him what needed to be done, rather I TOLD him what I was going to do. Jeff needs that from people, I think. Otherwise he'll just go nuts trying to juggle it all himself.

So no, damnit, I'm not going to feel guilty for this. I would happily have done some work on the show if anyone had asked. I even offered. There's no sense in my feeling bad that someone else has to do it. That's their choice.

After seeing Faustus, I think Forest and I are planning to plunk down and watch Kung Fu, drink some Witches' Brew (it's spiced wine) and cuddle. I also have to do some laundry and pack my stuff up for the tour. I'm really looking forward to basking in the presence of my honey before I have to leave. It's all that Shakespearean "parting is such sweet sorrow" stuff.

Last night we met our next-door neighbor for the first time. She came by at abut 9 PM to use the phone. She seems nice enough, and although grammar isn't her strong suit, she seemed friendly to me. She even offered to let me use her lawnmower (mine's broken) and explained that someone would be out soon to haul away the pile of junk in our collective backyards. That was a nice thing.

Then she came over again, knocked at our door at 1:30 in the morning, and used the phone to yell at her husband for a half an hour. It was a little on the wierd side. In her own way, though, I think she considers herself the ruler of her little kingdom, and she used words like "MY kid" and "MY house", and scolded the man like he was irredeemably childish, selfish and stupid. I was impressed, in a way, and appalled in a way, too. I'm really glad I'm not in a relationship like that.

Today Forest is a grumpy goombah because of his recent lack of sleep (same as mine) and having to get up early this morning. I am glad to say that when I went to lunch at the Store I picked on him incessantly and he seemed to cheer up quite a bit. He's worked a nap into his afternoon plan, and I'm optimistic we'll have a nice night together. It's really good that my feeling on our relationship isn't rocked by his changing moods anymore. See, I learn. When he's grumpy, I just poke him and call him 'my little ray of sunshine,' or something equally silly as that. Then I kick him around a bit, playing ninja-style. Soon the mood has improved somewhat. Do the grumpiness is not only not my fault, but I can make it better! I like that.

I'm going to really miss him for the two days I'm gone. Hopefully we'll have a chance to catch up from that soon. I keep thinking wistfully that our trip to Mackinac is less than three weeks away!